Italy have won the 2006 World Cup final in Germany, on a penalty shootout. The final score after extra time was 1-1, Zidane putting France ahead early on with a penalty, before Materazzi equalised for the Italians a short time later. The Italian full back, Fabio Grosso scored the all important penalty which means Italy have won the World Cup for the fourth time. The career of Zinedine Zidane, unfortunately ended in disgrace. In injury time, in his last ever football match, he was given a red card for an outrageous head butt on Marco Materazzi. This is a sad way for such a magnificent player to end his career. France were overall the better side, and penalties is the cruellest way to lose in the World Cup final. But for now, the World Cup belongs to Italy, which is an outstanding achievement, bearing in mind the state of football in their home country.

Germany have been sent crashing out of the World Cup on their own turf by Italy in arguably the best match of the tournament so far, and fully worthy of a semi final. Both sides gave everything, but Italy left it incredibly late to score two goals in the last two minutes to send them into the final. The match on the whole was very open, and the nature of Germany’s exit is incredibly dramatic and seemingly harsh. It’s hard to pick out any players as having a bad game, pretty much everyone on the pitch played their part to the best of their ability. Full back Fabio Grosso and Allesandro Del Piero were the two scorers for Italy, in what was an incredible battle of two of the best footballing nations in the world.

There were no empty spaces in the stands, but there were plenty on the pitch, in a game which saw more sendings off than goals. Plus there was the small matter of a disallowed goal, an own goal, some excellent saves and an enraged coach, in a game that can be best described as mayhem! With all the chaos going on, its was hard to see who the better team was, but at the end of the day, the Americans will be a lot happier with their point than their Italian opponents, in a result which leaves Group E wide open.

The Italians opened their World Cup journey with a 2-0 win over newcomers Ghana. Ghana played well, but in the end the Italians just had too much quality for them. Andrea Pirlo and Vincenzo Iaquinta were on the scoresheet for Italy.